Feedback on game

[Suna]

No voice acting. Voice for me is the important part of the game. I feel that voice acting gives the characters souls that makes the game experince more enjoyable. I did not support Kickstarter but I just bought the game just to try it out. I quit after 5 hours into the game. I feel that reading text makes me tired & no voice acting makes the dialogues less fun. Anyway I just want to say that VOICE ACTING IS VERY IMPORTANT FOR MODERN GAMES.

And I want to make big feedback short. So I just do a 1 - 10 scale.

 

Combat System 6/10
Story 10/10
Sound effects 10/10
RPG system 10/10

Graphics 8/10

Exploration 7/10

Voice acting 1/10

 

Just so you know. You do not need to feel left out. I did not finish Divinity Original Sin or Wasteland 2 either. Because these games have no voice acting.

It really destroyed the game experience for me but yes yes I know. Kickstarter has limited budget bla bla :D

I quit playing Wasteland 5 hours into the game. I quit playing Divinity Original Sin 6 hours into the game. And I stopped playing Pillars of Eternity because reading dialogues is just not preferance. The story is actually very awesome but I just could not finish the game without voice acting on dialogues.

 

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Seriously, a 30 seconds google search would have revealed there is a lot to read in this game.

 

If you purchase games without even googling once, it's yourself that is to blame - especially if you played other kickstarter projects before that had the same issue.

[Lantros]

You may not like reading,suna. But thats your problem...

[floyd ryan]

I feel exactly opposite. For me voice acting often ruins the game, because typically it's rather badly acted. The main cast is good sometimes (Bioware does a good job) but the rest is usually repetitive  (always the same actors for different characters) and sometimes rather cheesy. If you take away the body expressions you see in a AAA 3D game there is not much left to express nuances. In a 2D game like this text it the better option imo, you have dialogue and descriptions, the imagination does the rest.

[sim-h]

In my opinion there is exactly the right amount of voice acting in this game. Although I currently miss some of the hilarious lines from e.g. BG1, I haven't met most of the companions yet....

[Valmy]

Not every game needs to be fully voice acted. I find that full voice acting limits how big and complex a game can be and that is a difficult trade off to justify just so I don't have to read as much. But to each his own, not every game has to be the same. You have plenty of games out there that are fully voice acted, and we have PoE.

[Jayngo]

I fall somewhere in between. RPG's in genreal 10-15 years ago had little to no voice acting. I remember FF10 having lots of voice acting and I loved it. The problem though is, as others said, you may get a bad voice actor who completely ruins a well written charcter.

 

In the case of PoE there are two things I believe that led to less voice acted lines:

 

1) Kickstarter and limited budget. Good voice actors are not cheap.

2) This game is a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale games. As far as voice acting goes, it feels the same as those games to me.

 

But the biggest thing is that this is supposed to be a D&D experience played out on the PC. Read line dialogue and get lost in it. Become the characters. Make up crazy voices. Completely nerd out. You'll be better for it.

[Katarack21]

The voice acting isn't complete, but it is there. It's enough for me, personally. I really enjoy the descriptive text in the dialogues; it adds a lot of subtle nuance that is difficult to capture fully and clearly in voice acting.

[Aotrs Commander]

PoE was desined to be as big and expansive as Baldur's Gate II and Planescape:Torment. (Which also did not rely on full voice-acting, and the latter of which (pending playing enough of PoE to make judgement) is about the best RPG ever.)

 

You can't do that with full voice acting (maybe if Obsidian had gotten Star Citizen's budget...!) because the long and the short of it is... voice acting costs money. And not just paying the voice actors, but money in the time required (since it basically locks you into what is recorded, or you have to spend more money getting line re-recorded). It's basically a practical limitation.

 

Yeah, DA:O and whatnoit may have done it... but then again PoE is expected to be fairly significantly longer than that (and probably done on a smaller budget).

 

I'd rather have a larger, longer game than needing to have every bit of dialogue voiced. It's not like being forced to read it instead is a really arduous task. (That said, I can quite see the problem if someone is dyslexic, of course; that is a bugger, unfortunately.)

 

Still , PoE has not made any secret of the fact - and if this is the third time you've run into your problem because you didn't look into it...

 

Also, the old-school grognard in me (who, when pried away from playing TIE Fighter and Dungeon Keeper and all the Sierra/Tilted Mill city-builders, actually appears to have gotten the game he wanted in the style he wanted) is jumping up and down and shouting something about lawns or something....

Edited March 27, 2015 by Aotrs Commander

[Aridea]

PoE isn't about voice acting or fancy animations, its about reviving the spirit of old Infinity Engine games, and there was a lot to read and the voice acting was minimal. I agree with previous posters that the voice acting in PoE is enough. The texts are beautifully descriptive and convey atmosphere perfectly.

Edited March 27, 2015 by Aridea

[Gorth]

Thread pruned a bit. Lets try more feed back on the game, less feedback on fellow posters.

[Eurhetemec]

The voice acting isn't complete, but it is there. It's enough for me, personally. I really enjoy the descriptive text in the dialogues; it adds a lot of subtle nuance that is difficult to capture fully and clearly in voice acting.

 

Indeed - Pillars of Eternity is a great example of "text done right", and in many cases, whilst the dialogue is a little overwrought, the descriptive stuff is absolutely great, and pitched at a very good tone. Specifically, it helps you to imagine and understand a scene, but doesn't tell you what you think/feel too much. That's something that wasn't true of a lot of writing in older CRPGs, where they used description, there the writing very often told you that some jerk of a character was "impressive" or "masterful" or whatever, which, frankly, is outside the scope of what descriptive text should be saying. How my character feels about someone is my business - and Eternity seems to understand this (so far, at least, but it's been pretty consistent).

 

Also it's been interesting enough, so far, that I haven't felt the urge to just click through stuff, except, sadly, with a certain dwarf lady fairly early on, where the whole convo was so obvious and overplayed (despite being plot-vital) that I had resist the urge to clickclickclick pretty hard! (I succeed!)

 

The only complaint I have about the voice-acting, myself, is that it's really odd to have some parts of a sentence voiced, and not others, and to have equally-important-seeming dialogue branches in a conversation seemingly be randomly voiced or not. I mean, I think I can see why it is - all the un-voiced stuff in otherwise-voiced convos seems to be optional stuff that might have been added later to provide better explanations/background for things, or options specific to certain stats etc. - so presumably it was added in after the voice acting was done.

 

I can't really explain why the beginnings of some sentences seem to be cut off, though.

[Baron_Bathory]

Maybe I was imagining it, but there IS voice acting in the game, and IMO it's done pretty awesomely. Sure every single line isn't voiced, but who cares? Who even wants that?

[Zwiebelchen]

•  

   

  The voice acting isn't complete, but it is there. It's enough for me, personally. I really enjoy the descriptive text in the dialogues; it adds a lot of subtle nuance that is difficult to capture fully and clearly in voice acting.

   

  Indeed - Pillars of Eternity is a great example of "text done right", and in many cases, whilst the dialogue is a little overwrought, the descriptive stuff is absolutely great, and pitched at a very good tone. Specifically, it helps you to imagine and understand a scene, but doesn't tell you what you think/feel too much. That's something that wasn't true of a lot of writing in older CRPGs, where they used description, there the writing very often told you that some jerk of a character was "impressive" or "masterful" or whatever, which, frankly, is outside the scope of what descriptive text should be saying. How my character feels about someone is my business - and Eternity seems to understand this (so far, at least, but it's been pretty consistent).

   

  Also it's been interesting enough, so far, that I haven't felt the urge to just click through stuff, except, sadly, with a certain dwarf lady fairly early on, where the whole convo was so obvious and overplayed (despite being plot-vital) that I had resist the urge to clickclickclick pretty hard! (I succeed!)

   

  The only complaint I have about the voice-acting, myself, is that it's really odd to have some parts of a sentence voiced, and not others, and to have equally-important-seeming dialogue branches in a conversation seemingly be randomly voiced or not. I mean, I think I can see why it is - all the un-voiced stuff in otherwise-voiced convos seems to be optional stuff that might have been added later to provide better explanations/background for things, or options specific to certain stats etc. - so presumably it was added in after the voice acting was done.

   

  I can't really explain why the beginnings of some sentences seem to be cut off, though.

   

All this, though, only applies if you play the english version. The localizations are terrible.

[Valmy]

Maybe I was imagining it, but there IS voice acting in the game, and IMO it's done pretty awesomely. Sure every single line isn't voiced, but who cares? Who even wants that?

 

Plenty of people want this. But even if PoE becomes a AAA franchise I think full VO would be limiting on gameplay.

[Bazy]

Full VO is almost impossible... it leads to restricted development because VO has to be recording way in advance and can't be changed after the fact... and leads to the "paraphrase" atrocity of Mass Effect and Dragon Age.

[Valmy]

it leads to restricted development because VO has to be recording way in advance and can't be changed after the fact.

 

Yep. It can really hamstring a project. I like limited VO the best, you get an idea of what each character sounds like but it is not a burden on what the game can do.

[BaronVonChateau]

I'm quite overwhelmed, thus far. The game is a real joy to play.

 

-Keeping in mind that this comes from a guy who didn't like D&D system that much, the combat and character customization are very satisfying. Allow to experiment without committing your characters to a single playstyle, in part thanks to the fact that Weapon Specialization include a wide range of weapons, instead of one type. As well as modal fighting style.

-The non-binary "alignment system" goes well with the game mature treatment of a non-manichean storytelling. 

-Despite my initial reservations on what I heard during the Beta, Justin Bell's work on the soundtrack is outstanding.

-As for the writing, in the sense of presentation, rythm, characterization and setting : Obsidian guys know their trade. Strong moments and underlying themes, convincing and intriguing characters. A bit overwhelmed by the exposition, though, since I didn't do my homework and have some troubles keeping up with the lore. The Game manual could've been a little more fleshed out, in that regard.

-Haven't seen much yet in the multiple quest resolutions departement, by didn't bother to explore it. Still early in the game, also.

-Where the fruck is the accuracy bonus for Dexterity ?

-Scouting and finding hidden loot. <3

 

In short, what I've seen thus far makes me wish Obsidian would only work on in-house projects. This thing feels like it was made with inspiration and dedication.

 

5/5 would back again.

Edited March 27, 2015 by BaronVonChateau

[Bazy]

VOICE ACTING IS VERY IMPORTANT FOR MODERN GAMES.

 

Metacritic seems to disagree

[Tychoxi]

 

Most of us actually prefer it this way, hehe. Full voice acting is one of the reasons games like this disappeared at the turn of the millennium.

Edited March 27, 2015 by Tychoxi

[Emc2]

I usually read the text faster than the VO, so I end up skipping a lot of voice acting in modern games. I can't Imagine myself listening through the dialogue in PoE. There's tons of text, I'm better off reading the stuff and Voice is there just give me a general impression of the character. As the guy above said, well written, expansive dialogue disappeared from games after Voice acting became a thing.

Edited March 27, 2015 by Emc2

[kat7ra]

Git out!
To be slightly more constructive...

We know that the game is not fully voice acted, we've known this from day 1. It's not meant to be, it's made for people who ENJOY reading.

I get that it's not for everyone, and I don't say that everyone has to enjoy reading, it's a good thing if you do, but hey, if it's not your cup of tea, that's not a problem.

but as someone stated, a MINIMAL research would have told you about the reading, ANY review would have been a dead give away.

 

Harsh truth, game is not meant for you, I'm sorry, and we do NOT want it to change.

[CynicalP]

That's funny even when I play a fully voiced game I turn on the captioning so I can read while I listen.  I love reading.

[Silver6986]

Josh gives reasons for their choices in relation to Voice Over in an interview with Arvan Eleron on his stream, specifically "how much" should be used, apparently they spoke with Chris Parker for guidance about how much to use, who was a producer working at Black Isle on BG2, see it here:

 

 

Specifically regarding VO: 47:55 - 50:27

 

Suna, you should appraise yourself of the video so as to have a better understanding of the hows and whys as to how much VO was used for PoE. However truth be told you really should've had some base understanding of what you were getting into with this game in the first place, it's the spiritual successor to the likes of BG2, which imo even before watching that interview was what I figured was their ballpark to aim for in terms of VO (it also was a text heavy game, definitely by todays standards anyway).

 

Silver 

Edited March 27, 2015 by Liquid_Silver11

[PrimeJunta]

First impressions from the real deal. Playing on Hard.

 

Short version: OOH YEAH BABY!

 

Longer version:

 

I'd been playing the BB on Normal, and the difficulty here on Hard seems... roughly similar, maybe a little harder. To start with I had my behind liberally kicked when poking my nose into areas carelessly, and especially because Aloth's starting spells kinda blow. Once I got to level 3...4 or so, got geared up a bit, and figured out my party's strengths, combat's gotten into the groove and I'm getting pasted across the landscape a whole lot less. Starting to really enjoy the combat. So yeah, that's all good at this point. Except some annoying if relatively minor bugs: for example when I try to open with a stealth attack, not uncommonly PC attacks the wrong enemy. Not the one I clicked on, but somebody else, usually creeping to a really bad position in the process. That usually screws up my battle plan rather handily. Looking forward to how it'll feel later on. At this point I'm thinkin' the IE game combat is more fun, but perhaps that's due to familiarity, and perhaps the perception will shift. But it's not bad at all really.

 

The music: it is absolutely lovely. The only fly in the ointment is the fact that not everything is live; the synthesized tracks jar a little. 

 

The looks: gorgeous.

 

The writing: brilliant, moving, touching. A bit more grimdark than I had expected but perhaps that'll change. I especially like the characters. Aloth, Durance, Edér, Kana Rua, and Sagani are all awesome and I'm feeling a bit bad that there aren't slots in the party for the three other companions that are in the game so I'll have to swap someone out.

 

The voice acting: between passable and pretty good really. I usually click through dialog as fast as I can read it unless the VO is really good, and I am doing rather more of that than not.

 

The feelz: this is a big huge whole new world and I love it. It feels sprawling and huge in all directions.

 

Bottom line is, I am absolutely loving it. Clearly Obsidian's best game, and possibly the best cRPG of the decade.